From Iraq to Syria, the Central African Republic to South Sudan, to the classrooms of Nigeria and Pakistan, to the beaches of Gaza — 2014 was a spectacularly unsafe year to be a child in some parts of the world.

One piece of evidence is the recent report of the United Nations Children’s Fund which called 2014 a year of “horror, fear and despair” for children.

“Never in recent memory have so many children been subjected to such unspeakable brutality,” UNICEF chief Anthony Lake declared on Dec. 8 when the agency released findings that 15 million children were caught in violent conflicts, while another 230 million were living in countries plagued by armed conflicts.

“You’ve seen targeted attacks against children in terms of schools being hit, in terms of abductions, rape, killing,” said Afshan Khan, UNICEF’s head of emergency programs, said in an interview from New York City.

“In previous years, there was a concept around the protection of civilians, in particularly children.”

Children are also being forced to join armies as fighters, including 10,000 in the Central African Republic this year alone, she said.

Half a million children have been forced from their homes there during the ongoing civil war and 430 children have been killed or maimed, a three-fold increase over 2013, the UN says.

For many, the deaths of four Gaza boys killed on a beach during Israel’s summer war with Hamas terrorists came to epitomize the tragedy of children in conflict. The boys, all cousins, were strafed by shells fired from an Israeli navy ship after Hamas broke a ceasefire and fired rockets on Israel.

Those boys were among 538 children killed in Gaza during the 50-day war, along with 3,370 injured. Another 54,000 were rendered homeless.

Donors are growing weary and not meeting the funding demands of the growing list of international crises, said Khan.